“Cornelius,” Zenobia said, cutting through his bluster, “you are a precious coward.”

“I’m not a coward!” the viscount said. “I have important things to do here in the city. The House of Lords is meeting, I’ll have you know, and I’m very important—very important indeed. My voice is required, essential.”

“You’re a cringing coward,” Zenobia said. “You don’t want to go up there and face the Beast yourself, even though you are sending your daughter—your pregnant daughter—into the countryside to marry him.”

Now that Zenobia had got hold of the story, Linnet began to feel like one of those maidens who hung around King Arthur’s court and invariably found herself in the coils of a great serpent. Her aunt instinctively turned any event into a melodrama, though one had to admit that this was worthy of a little drama. “You are throwing your daughter onto the mercies of a wild man,” Zenobia said, her voice rising.

Rather surprisingly, the viscount did not back down. “I’ve already made up my mind. I shall not go to Wales.”

Linnet knew that sulky tone of voice; he wouldn’t go. “Why not?” she asked, before Zenobia could jump in.

“I am no pander for my daughter,” her father thundered. “I may have been a cuckold to my wife, but I will not double my shame by pandering my only child.”

“You already have,” Linnet snapped back. “You bartered me off this very afternoon, by lying about the child that we all know I’m not carrying.”

Lord Sundon’s jaw was rigid. “Your mother never would have spoken to me in such a fashion.”

That was true. Linnet could not remember a single occasion on which Rosalyn’s voice lost its sweet, musical tone. Whereas Linnet’s voice grated with the anger she couldn’t keep inside. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the tone of my voice doesn’t change the truth.”

“The truth is that every girl is bartered off in some fashion or other,” Zenobia said. “But I really think that you should accompany poor Linnet, Cornelius. What if Marchant takes one look at the girl and refuses to marry her?”

“He won’t,” Lord Sundon said flatly. “We all know that—”

At that moment the door opened and Tinkle entered. “His Grace the Duke of Windebank begs your indulgence.”

“At this hour?” the viscount asked.

“Is he outside?” Zenobia demanded.

It appeared that the duke was indeed in his coach, waiting to see if Lord Sundon could spare him a moment.

“Bring him in,” the viscount said. Then, turning to Linnet. “I suppose he couldn’t wait until tomorrow to meet you.”

“He can’t see me,” Linnet said, alarmed. She looked down at her slim profile. “In this dress, I don’t have any evidence of royal progeny.”

“I told him you were barely showing,” her father said. “Just sit down quickly. We’d better see him in the rose drawing room.”

The Duke of Windebank had to be sixty, but he looked younger and very handsome. He had a regal profile, worthy of a coin, which seemed fitting for his rank. A Roman coin, Linnet decided.

“Miss Thrynne,” he said, bowing. “You are as beautiful as the world has described.”

Linnet dropped a curtsy, judging it to the precise inch to indicate respect for a duke. “I am honored to meet you, Your Grace.”

“Now,” he said, turning back to Linnet’s father and aunt. “I took it upon myself to interrupt you at this hour because I decided that I should personally escort Miss Thrynne to Wales. My son is a brilliant man, absolutely brilliant.”

He paused.

“But he does have a reputation for irascibility,” Zenobia said, giving him her version of the family smile. “Please do be seated, Your Grace.”

Despite his youthful aspect, the duke creaked when he sat down, like a chair left out in the rain. His eyes were suddenly wary. “My son has been much maligned.”

“I suggest we dispense with the pleasantries,” Zenobia said, rearranging the drape of her garments. “After all, we are soon to be family. Lord Marchant may be rather surprised, if not shocked, at the arrival of his bride, and it’s only natural that you wish to accompany dear Linnet, Your Grace.”

“Well, that’s settled,” Linnet’s father said, dispensing with any pretense of reluctance.

The duke looked from the viscount to Zenobia. “Will Miss Thrynne travel with a chaperone? Yourself, perhaps, Lady Etheridge?”

“No need for that,” Zenobia replied cheerfully. “She’s ruined. No point in guarding an empty stable, so to speak. Would you like to bring Mrs. Hutchins with you, my dear?” she asked Linnet.

Linnet looked from her father to her aunt and something familiar panged in the general region of her heart. But it was an old pain, a familiar pain, and easily shrugged off. “I think not,” she said. “If you don’t mind, Your Grace, I shall just come by myself, with my maid, of course. As my aunt says, the circumstances certainly suggest that a chaperone is not necessary.”

The duke nodded.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Linnet said, rising, “I have an appointment at Vauxhall.”

The gentlemen scrambled to their feet, and Zenobia followed, after accepting (in a most theatrical fashion) the duke’s help in rising.

After which Linnet climbed into a carriage, instructing the family coachman, Stubbins, to drive around London wherever he wished, and leaving her relatives with the happy, if quite mistaken, impression that Prince Augustus was vigorously debauching her.

It could be that she would never return to London, she realized, staring out the window. The city passed before the carriage in a long, dreary string of gray houses, made even dingier by a thick layer of coal dust.

That would mean she might not see her father again, as he never left the city. Or Aunt Zenobia, who left only for the most raucous of house parties.

At the moment, that idea was entirely untroubling.

Chapter Seven

In a caravan made up of three carriages and eight groomsmen, Linnet and the Duke of Windebank finally arrived in Wales two weeks later. Since the duke had only one subject of conversation at every meal—his son—by then she knew enough about her future husband to introduce him to the Royal College of Physicians herself. That is, if he hadn’t already joined their ranks.

After the first few days of incessant talking about Piers, Linnet had banished the duke from her carriage, with the excuse that her condition, combined with the jouncing of the coach, made her nauseated.

She had then discovered that lying flat on the ducal cushions was remarkably comfortable. And since she had an iron-clad stomach, she had read happily through their journey, lying on her back and munching apples.

What she’d seen of Wales through the carriage windows was green: a dark, alive green that seemed drenched with water and wind. She’d never smelled the sea before, but she knew what it was immediately, deep in her bones. It was wild and fishy and free, and made her dream about long sea voyages to islands she’d never heard of.

When she wasn’t contemplating the sea, she thought about the physician she was about to marry. According to his father, he had been unfairly labeled as a “beast” because of his impatience with the hoary medical establishment.